


Jedi Is as Jedi Does

by Findswoman



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Humor, Jedi History (Star Wars), Jedi Philosophy, Jedi Training (Star Wars), Meaning of Being a Jedi, Story within a Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:02:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28298676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Findswoman/pseuds/Findswoman
Summary: Finn visits Rey with deep, serious questions about the nature of the Jedi. Will her answers be just as deep and serious?
Relationships: Finn & Rey (Star Wars)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 5





	Jedi Is as Jedi Does

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aikisenshi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aikisenshi/gifts).



> Written for **aikisenshi** as part of the JCF Fanfic forums’ [14th Annual Non-Denominational Winter Holiday Fic-Gift Exchange](https://boards.theforce.net/threads/the-14th-annual-non-denominational-winter-holiday-fic-gift-exchange-sw-wishes-sent.50055167/). Her prompt was as follows: “ Sequels, post Rise of Skywalker. The new LEGO Holiday special made me want to see more of Rey and Finn figuring out what Jedi are supposed to be, or what shenanigans the heroes from the ST are up to.” So, here is my attempt at that! I enjoyed writing this story for a good pal and very talented writer. <3

The twin suns lolled in a late-afternoon sky as Finn, carrying a thick, ancient tome under his arm, approached the front door of the white-walled homestead and rang the door-chime.  
  
“M’yes? Who’s there?” came a voice from inside.  
  
“It’s me,” Finn said.  
  
“Ah! Do come in!”  
  
He did. Rey, still wearing her reading glasses, rose from her desk in her combined study-sitting-room-entrance-hall to greet him with a friendly hug. He did the best to hug back with the heavy book still in hand.  
  
“So good to see you!”  
  
“Likewise!”  
  
“Do sit down.” She gestured to him to come over and be seated in one of the armchairs next to her expansive bookcase. Its shelves were crammed with books both ancient and modern, though one—the one closest to her chair—was full of handmade, mostly humanoid cloth dolls. “So, tell me, how are things going with the _Rammahgon_?”  
  
“Enh, just fine.” He set the book down beside him on the chair, which was spacious and cushy. “I mean, the Sith Wayfinder stuff in Precept Three is kinda weird, but—”  
  
“Oh, yeah, don’t even bother with any of that.” She waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “But did it answer any of your questions?”  
  
“Well, see, now…” Finn paused and bit his lip. “Look, honestly, Rey, _no,_ it didn’t. I mean, I’ve been through all five Precepts, plus both volumes of the _Aionomica_ —”  
  
“Both? Wow, you’re more hardcore than I am!” Rey laughed.  
  
“—okay, but I just don’t see anyone giving a straight answer about what a Jedi actually _is_ and how we’re really supposed to relate to the Force and all that. Like, we’re supposed to be able to control the Force and use it to do things? But we’re also supposed to obey the will of the Force? Which is it?”  
  
“Okay—”  
  
“And we’re supposed to love all things and all beings, but not get too attached? How does _that_ work?”  
  
“Okay, Finn—”  
  
“And don’t _even_ get me started on the whole Guardian-Consular-Sentinel business. I still have no idea which one I am, if you’re wondering. So yeah, no, I don’t think it answered any of my questions.”  
  
“Hmm.” Rey knit her brow in thought for several moments. Finn sat and watched her expectantly, as he always did when she got like this. It usually meant that some kind of interesting insight was not far off.  
  
And then she said the words he had been dreading: “Let me tell you a story.”  
  
“Aw, here we go again…”  
  
“I know, I know… but just listen.” Rey took three cloth dolls from the shelf, one dressed in blue, one in green, and one in yellow. “Once, there were three Jedi Knights. “One was a Guardian”—she held up the blue doll—“one a Consular”—she held up the green doll—“and one a Sentinel”—the yellow doll. “They were friends and study partners, as we are. But there was one thing they could never agree on: what a Jedi was, and what they were supposed to do with the Force.”  
  
“Aw, Rey…”  
  
She simply continued. “The Guardian would say, ‘The Jedi’s task is to use the Force actively, to defend others and defeat evil.’” She held up the blue doll and wiggled it slightly, to make it look as though it was uttering those words. “The Consular would say, ‘No, you are wrong. The Jedi’s task is to study and contemplate the Force.’” She did the same with the green doll. “And the Sentinel would say, ‘No, you are both wrong. The Jedi uses the Force according to the needs of the situation, to accomplish their goals by any means necessary.’  
  
“So one day they decided they would journey to a wise, old Master far away in Wild Space to ask for her advice and hopefully put the matter to rest for once and for all.” Rey took all three dolls in one hand and began to walk them along the shelf.  
  
“It was a long journey of several days in hyperspace, and they encountered many difficulties. First, they ran into some minions of the Sith Empire, who tried to kidnap them.” She took a faceless gray and black doll from the shelf and waved it menacingly at the other three. “But the Guardian fought valiantly against them and defeated them all”—here she had the blue doll dropkick the gray doll in the head, sending it flying across the room—“and only then could the Jedi continue on their journey.”  
  
“Okay, and then what?”  
  
“Next, they ran into pirates, who stole all their spare parts and fuel.” Rey took a dark brown doll with a top-knot and jaw-tusks from the shelf. “The Sentinel had to sneak on board their ship to steal them back”—here she made the yellow doll walk tiptoe-style across the shelf, then threw the brown doll across the room— “and only then they could the three Jedi continue on their journey.”  
  
“Cool, then what?”  
  
“Then, as if that weren’t enough, they ran into a pod of purrgil who got in the way of their last and biggest hyperspace jump.” Rey produced from her shelf a small, improbably fluffy plush purrgil with stubby tentacles and waved it menacingly at the three other dolls. “It took the Consular several hours of negotiations with the pod leader to get them to get out of their way and let them pass.” She threw the purrgil across the room, as well. “And only then—”  
  
“—could the three Jedi continue on their journey,” Finn chimed in. “Yeah, yeah, got it, got it. So, then what?”  
  
“Well, once they finally arrived on the planet, to get to the hut where the wise, old Master lived, they had to hike across a huge desert that was scorching hot by day and freezing cold by night.” She walked the dolls slowly, arduously, from one side of their bookshelf to the other.  
  
Finn glanced out a nearby window at Tatooine’s desert landscape. “Heh, sounds familiar.”  
  
“During the day, they had to ration their water and food, and at night they had to take turns overheating their sabers’ kyber crystals to keep them all warm. To pass the time they told stories and sang songs and chatted and sledded down the sand dunes.”  
  
“Okay, okay, okay. And _then?_ ”  
  
“Well, after ten long days of hiking, they finally reached the old Master’s hut. They knocked at the door”—Rey whapped the three dolls against the wooden side of the bookcase—“and the Master came out to greet them.”  
  
The doll she picked up next represented a short, green, frog-like being with long, pointed ears that stuck out on either side of its head. It was much shorter than the other dolls—roughly half as tall—and clad in white robes.  
  
“And the Master asked, ‘What can I do for you, O travelers?’ And they said, ‘O wise one, we have come to ask you a question.’ And she said, ‘What is that?’ And they said, ‘Please tell us, what is the true path of the Jedi? What does the Force want of us? Valorous action? Or studious contemplation? Or resourceful determination? Or—something else?”  
  
Rey closed her eyes and gestured grandly with the four dolls—the three travelers in one hand and the small green Master in the other—as she continued. “And the old Master reached out to the fabric of the Force surrounding the three travelers, to feel the weave of their actions from the start of their journey through their arrival at her door. She saw their adventures with the Sith and pirates and purrgil, she saw their long trek through the desert and all the tribulations and privations they had gone through just to make it to her hut and ask her this question.  
  
“And, finally, she opened her eyes”—Rey did so—”and said to them: ‘The path of the Jedi? Why, you know it already, O travelers.’”  
  
“And let me guess what happened next,” Finn interposed. “The three travelers swore and stomped their feet and tore their hair and yelled, ‘We came all this way just for _that?!_ ’”  
  
“Now, now, now!” Rey winked as she waved the Master doll admonishingly at Finn. “Emotion, yet peace!”  
  
“Oh, don’t get me started on _that_ one, either.”  
  
“Anyway, they did nothing of the sort,” Rey replied. “They thought it over and realized she was right.”  
  
“Okay…?”  
  
“They thought of how each of them had used their own talents and abilities to overcome the troubles that had befallen them on their journey: the Guardian in fighting the Sith, the Sentinel in retrieving their cargo from the pirates, the Consular in negotiating with the purrgil. If they had not all been there together, each using their differing gifts, they never would have made it to the Master’s planet at all.”  
  
Finn nodded. “True, very true.”  
  
“But even more, they thought of the long trek through the desert, how careful they had been about sharing their water and food and warmth. And they thought of the stories they had told and the songs they had sung, and even of how they had sledded down the sand dunes to pass the time.” Rey set the dolls back on the shelf one by one as she spoke, starting with the Master and continuing with the blue, green, and yellow travelers. “And they realized that was what the Force had really called them to do as Jedi: to be there for each other, support each other, and use their unique talents to help each other in times of trouble.”  
  
“And to sled down sand dunes,” put in Finn.  
  
“Well yes. That, too.”  
  
There was silence for several moments as Finn thought this over, looking now at the shelf full of dolls, now at the book beside him, and now out the window. The whole Jedi thing made a lot more sense now to him than they had before. And it was not because he had picked over the _Rammahgon_ and _Aionomica_ and other ancient texts with the proverbial ultra-micron scanner. It was because he had gone to a friend, one of his best friends, to talk it over. Jedi helping Jedi, just like in the story. That said…  
  
He looked back at Rey. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he said.  
  
“Yes, probably so,” she replied.  
  
And only minutes later, Finn and Rey were speeding down Hett’s Hill outside Anchorhead on a large, square piece of scrap metal, tumbling into a pile at the bottom, rolling and frolicking in the sand—and then climbing back to the top and beginning it all over again, yelling and laughing and cheering all the way.  
  
**the end**

**Author's Note:**

> Rey has that cloth pilot doll in _The Force Awakens,_ so I could see her having made many more such dolls by the time she’s settled into the old Lars homestead.  
>   
> The [_Rammahgon_](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Rammahgon) and the [Guardian](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Aionomica%E2%80%9D><em>Aionomica</em></a>%20are%20two%20of%20the%20ancient%20Jedi%20texts%20that%20Rey%20takes%20with%20her%20from%20Ahch-To%20in%20<em>The%20Last%20Jedi.</em><br>%0A<br>%0AI%20mashed%20up%20Legends%20and%20NuCanon%20lore%20a%20bit%20by%20bringing%20in%20the%20Jedi%20paths%20of%20<a%20href=), [Consular](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Jedi_Consular), and [Sentinel](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Jedi_Sentinel), which I first encountered in _Knights of the Old Republic_ (but which I think have come up in some newer canon material, too).  
>   
> The story Rey tells Finn is based very loosely on [_God in Between_](https://www.amazon.com/Between-Rabbi-Sandy-Eisenberg-Sasso/dp/1879045869) by Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, a nonsectarian children’s book about two people searching who go on a journey to search for God but instead find God in themselves and their relationship to each other. I always thought it might be similar for Jedi and the Force!  
>   
> And, of course, anyone who has made it to the end of _The Rise of Skywalker_ will recognize Rey’s sled! Hett’s Hill is completely fanon, however.


End file.
